Enough Said movie review

Enough Said is a cute romantic comedy about Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who is a middle aged, divorced mother of a college bound daughter and is a professional masseuse. Her life seems fairly in order despite being single and even though she seems rather content, she has a slight bit of loneliness to her. Her daughter Ellen (Tracey Fairaway) has a somewhat off putting relationship with her mom. They seem to get along well enough, but with Ellen seldom being home, Eva spends more time with Ellen’s friend Chloe (Tavi Gevinson). Ellen isn’t fond of this, and she makes it a point to express her exasperation about the whole thing. But honestly, with Ellen always being gone and never wanting Chloe to chat with Eva, it is no surprise that Ellen looks to Chloe for some level of companionship.

Eva ends up going to a party with her married couple friends Sarah (Toni Collette) and Will (Ben Falcone) at pseudo-celebrity’s house they know. While at the party, she meets Marianne (Catherine Keener), a very successful poet. Eva explains that she’s a masseuse and Marianne wants to hire her, so they exchange info. Later in that same party, Eva meets Albert (James Gandolfini) where they have a very light and clever exchange, but don’t appear to have much of a spark.

After what seems to be a few days, Eva is chatting with Sarah and Sarah tells her that Albert was asking if he could call Eva. Eva shockingly surprised that he might be interested, agrees. They eventually go out on a date which is a fantastic exchange between the two; plenty of great middle age jokes; comments about young people; getting older; a very funny scene. Albert, an over weight film archivist and divorced father of a college bound teen, begins to fall for Eva rather quickly as their relationship begins to form. Eva’s new client Marianne, is nearly constantly ragging about her ex-husband about every little seemingly mundane thing including swirling guacamole to get the onions out, not having bedside tables and generally being over weight. Eventually Eva realizes that the Albert she is dating just so happens to be Marianne’s ex-husband. Eva is now in a very difficult situation as Marianne reveals that she trusts Eva and feels they are friends. As time progresses, Eva’s relationship with Ellen fades; her relationship with Chloe grows; her relationship with Marianne grows and her relationship with Albert becomes stale. Since Eva knows now, she begins asking more in depth questions to Marianne about Albert, which ultimate begins to influence her dramatically and her negative influence is shown very embarrassingly during a dinner outing with Sarah and Will. Eva really goes too far when she makes some very unkind comments to and about Albert, really making him obviously feel ridiculed and horribly mocked. He more or less breaks up with her where she realizes the errors of her ways, but by this point his heart is broken.

Eventually, while with Marianne, Albert shows up to pick up his daughter and is shocked to find Eva there. Eva tries to play it off that she is surprised but quickly announces that she did put one and one together some time ago. You can quickly see the light of understanding shine in Albert’s face as he is fully aware of what was going on with Eva and how she had begun to treat him. Marianne equally is shocked that she was the one dating Albert and after that Marianne more or less fades out of the picture completely. Eva, distraught that the truth has come out, ends up having a confrontation with Chloe’s mother because Chloe is at her house all the time, taking advice from Eva, and Chloe’s Mom verbally assaults her and storms off with Chloe leaving Eva completely alone. Eva has betrayed her friendship with Marianne, crushed her relationship with Albert, lost her friendship with Chloe, and is alone with Ellen being away at school. She tries her best to pick up her routine as a masseuse and one day drives past Albert’s house, where he notices her but makes no indication of caring. Eva turns in unexpected disappointment, then turns back and Albert is stepping out the door. Albert doesn’t really make any kind of gesture or invitation, but Eva gets out and approaches anyhow. A little bit of small talk later and the two exchange their feelings of missing one another and the relationship is reborn.

All in all, I felt that this was a very fine movie. Of course it was the second to last project James Gandolfini was in before his untimely passing. James was such a fine actor; he may have been well known in the Sopranos, but seeing as I never got into that at all, my first real exposure to James was in Zero Dark Thirty, after that was The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and now Enough Said. I think he was such an organic actor, he never forced anything, never tried to be anything he wasn’t, and I admire that in an actor. He has some really great jokes and one liners in this, it’s just fantastic. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, I have no real knowledge of her acting outside of Seinfeld, which I also never got into. As much as I do like her, I felt that her role in this was split three ways; 1/3 of the time she was clearly being sarcastic and witty; 1/3 she seemed to be sincere and honest; 1/3 it was really hard to tell if she was trying to be sincere and it was coming across as sarcastic or vice versa. It’s that triple situation that in some ways made me not completely enjoy her acting in this. She’s funny and the scene early in the film when her client breaths into her face and she kind of winces, some reason I loved that reaction she gave. As I have no real basis for Julia, I did greatly enjoy her role regardless of her being funny, witty, dramatic and even near the end when she is crying, I have to say I wanted to find her and give her a hug.

Additionally, I felt that there were several unanswered things in the movie, such as her relationship with Ellen and how Ellen is never really around, why is Ellen always gone? Obviously Eva is using Chloe to sort of “replace” Ellen since she’s never around, but is she doing it intentionally or unintentionally? Marianne, after the embarrassing scene with Eva and Albert, what happens to Marianne, she just seems to disappear from the story? And lastly, Eva’s couple friends Sarah and Will have a very awkward relationship and at the end when they’re prepping for Thanksgiving dinner, Will is nowhere around so I was wondering if perhaps they had split since things seemed fragile and volatile throughout most the movie. I did enjoy this movie and I feel that it is very much geared towards an older audience. Not to say that a younger crowd won’t enjoy it, but an older crowd should much more appreciate it and in many ways relate to much of the situations going on; middle age dating, teens leaving home for college, finding your place in changing lives, etc…

Enough Said

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About Adam Warner

I firmly believe that everyone and everything has a story; from childhood to school to social outings to work to vacations or every single thing inbetween. There is always a story involved, this is my chance to share my stories.

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I firmly believe that everyone and everything has a story; from childhood to school to social outings to work to vacations or every single thing inbetween. There is always a story involved, this is my chance to share my stories.

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